Show boss Kate recently told The Sun Online that she wants the cobbles to represent the nation with all kinds of families living in Weatherfield as the show goes to six episodes per week.

“We do need to look at our diversity, definitely and get a better representation of different kind of families across the street,” Kate told The Sun Online.

Part of the move towards representing the country includes having a gay family on the cobbles with Billy Mayhew and Todd Grimshaw raising a child, but more racial diversity is in the works too to bring in new characters for the increased number of episodes.

Addressing the change in workload for the cast and crew going from five to six episodes a week, Kate assured them that it will be all fine.

“It will be absolutely fine. I have always been cool about this coming from Emmerdale,” she said.

“We don’t film weekends there usually unless there’s been an illness or something and people don’t collapse from exhaustion there.

“It’s about ensuring the story balance is right and we’re changing the filming structure as well so crews and directors aren’t suddenly doing six a week, they will be broken up into blocks of four like at Emmerdale.”

Kate also teased the brand new sets that are being built to increase the story capacity.

“What I’m excited about is the lot extension – it will be a cool Truman Show experience when someone turns that corner of the street and then carries on.

“We are starting to build it imminently and it’s a few months of construction.”

In a recent interview Kate said the soap needs to be more diverse on and off-screen “to break new ground”.